In TimeForge, daily employee schedule templates are 24-hour periods of time that reflect a single day of a schedule. You can use a schedule template to organize your labor requirements in advance of the actual schedule, allowing you to easily anticipate upcoming staffing needs. In other words, creating an employee schedule template will allow you to rapidly create a schedule, as long as you spend a little time in advance thinking about your labor needs.

For example, you might create a schedule template for staff members needed Monday through Thursday, and then separate templates for Friday and Saturday since they require more labor. Or, you might create schedule templates for each day of the week, with templates for Monday night football, holidays, or other special occasions. There are no limits on the number of employee schedule templates that you can have.

Here are the easy steps you need to take in order to create a work schedule for your employees.

Go to the “Templates” page.

Log in

Hover over the “Schedules” tab

Click “Templates”

Add or edit an employee schedule template.

You can add a new schedule template by clicking on “Add a New Schedule Template.”

Note: You can also edit an existing template by clicking on the name of the template.

Fill out the schedule template information.

1. Enter a description of the template. This should be something that will remind you of what the schedule is for (Super Bowl Sunday).

2. If you are using “Departments” in TimeForge, you will have the option to select which department this staff member template will be applied.

3. Choose what day of the week your schedule template will start.

4. Select the number of days this template will span.

Click “Save” when you’re finished.

Add shifts to the employee schedule template.

Editing a schedule template for a work period is similar to building a work schedule in the Daily View.

Simply select a start time and end time for the shift, an applicable position, and then choose an employee. Just like in the scheduling Daily View, you can build the template by position or employee, based on your business needs.

The red arrow is pointing to the “Copy this shift” icon, which you can use to quickly add multiple shifts that span the same time and position.

Use templates to help control labor cost.

Also, just like the TimeForge schedules, each shift can be assigned directly to an employee, or to the TimeForge AutoScheduler. When building the actual schedule using this template, the AutoScheduler will find the best fit for your schedule, and will replace the “AutoSchedule” employee with the best fitting staff member for that time period.

Alternatively, you can choose to leave the shift “Open,” meaning that a manager will later choose the appropriate employee, or you can set the shift to be a bid shift. Bid shifts allow multiple staff members to try to pick up a single shift, allowing management to choose the best fitting staff member.

There are several options that can be chosen for each shift by selecting the shift properties icon, the small pencil, next to the shift. Options include whether the staff member is an Extra or is On Call, the Skill Level necessary to work the shift, and if the shift requires more than one employee to come in, then you can change how many staff members are needed to work.

Employee schedule templates with departments.

If you are using TimeForge Departments, you will notice that templates are separated into departments. This allows you to create specific templates for each department, without worrying about positions and staff members that are not in your department.

You can also make a copy of the template by choosing “Make Copy.”

What some of our clients have to say ...

We are one year into it now, well past being enamored with the newness. We are married to TimeForge. It's as essential to us now as any of our management tools today, and we very happy about that.- Steve @ Hermosa Cyclery

We really like the program so far. I know that it is geared towards restaurants, but we are a real estate company and we love it because it is inexpensive and it is so easy to use.- Nicole @ Exit Premier Realty

The Timeforge scheduling system has not only increased our efficiency tremendously; decreased the errors in what is normally an error prone environment; it has also saved us ten times what it costs us each month.- Michael @ Tiara Cafe

I would highly recommend TimeForge to anyone making work schedules. ... What used to take 1-2 hours, now takes 15 minutes. The reports section is comprehensive and useful.- Lawrence Payne @ Mid Pacific Country Club

I've been really pleased with this latest version of TimeForge. I'm really getting familiar with this program and its become a great time saver! Keep up the good work!- Loren @ Fresh Produce

Before using TimeForge, creating a schedule took 2 hours. With TimeForge, it takes less than 10 minutes.- Gail @ Kerr Drug

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About TimeForge

The best tools available for managing labor in the retail, restaurant, food-service, and hospitality industries. Includes applicant tracking, time management, employee scheduling, payroll, and other labor management tools.